Two different hearing aids cannot share an Apple ID

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

Billyd11 wrote:

two different hearing aids can’t share an Apple ID. Sharing the Apple ID works for us of things like photos. This seems to be an Apple issue not a hearing aid company issue.

I don't understand how you came to that conclusion.

I never enter my Apple-ID with anything regarding my MFi-connected Hearing Aids.

¿What exactly are you seeing that suggests this is an Apple-ID issue?

When you pair hearing aids with an iPhone that also pairs it with all other devices sharing the Apple ID. Which is just one of many reasons not to share an Apple ID with another person. There are many more reasons. And sharing photos is not a valid reason, because Family Shared provides the same capability without all of the problems sharing an Apple ID causes.

Apple is very specific about not sharing Apple IDs. Many problems will happen if you do, and this is only one of them.

If you are going to disregard Apple’s specific design implementation then any problems are on you, not Apple, and Apple is not going to make an exception for anyone who refuses to abide by the design of their software products.

This is what you should do: How to “unshare” an Apple ID - Apple Community

I'm not sure I'd say it's an "Apple issue," as Apple is pretty clear that they view an Apple Account as something that should not be shared. In fact, they wrote a whole support article on the subject.

Make sure that each family member has a unique Apple Account - Apple Support

You can, however, let Apple know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

Lawrence Finch wrote:

There are NO pros. Only cons. Apple is very clear about that. Among the cons:

Yep. A few more, off the top…

• Voicemail is merged.
• Notifications and two-factor authentication messages can and variously will be misrouted.
• Anyone sharing the account can erase any others’ data and brick any others’ phone, whether accidentally or intentionally.
• Focus and do-not-disturb settings get shared.

I don’t know off-hand if the hearing aid settings for AirPods Pro (models supporting that) also get merged, but it wouldn’t surprise.

Billyd11: Apple Accounts are fundamentally per-person, and fundamentally share what would be wanted and expected to share with yourself, across your own gear. And Apple has been adding details that can and will get shared across your own gear, too. Or that gets shared with others, in this case.

We can help migrate from the original setup sharing here, but we cannot fix the sharing behavior of an Apple Account that is working as designed.

<< We have 5 apple devices and the hearing aids only pair with one. >>

That is a good 'symptom'.

If you want to pair an additional device, you will need to un-pair the original device. Also, once paired with, for example, your iPhone, you can not also pair that same Hearing Aid or headset with another device, such as a Mac, regardless of Apple-ID, unless you un-pair it first.

And as Lawrence Finch has advised you, in great detail, once ONE such hearing device is paired, you can not pair an additional Hearing Aid or similar Bluetooth device to any Machine or iPhone logged in with the same Apple-ID, as they are all sharing the same data for Audio streams, notifications, and controls.

Apple-ID is intended to be used as a Personal account.

I don’t care what you do, continue sharing an Apple ID against Apple’s strong recommendation against doing so and live with the consequences. Apple is not going to change the way iOS works for one person.

Apple created Family Sharing (which is free) specifically so people don’t have to share Apple IDs. It has all of the advantages of sharing, but none of the disadvantages.

Billyd11 wrote:

You missed the whole point, one apple ID works for us because of things like Photos, Calendar. How would find my iPhone work with two ID's. I hear what you said about two id'd but don't understand the logic since two differrent devises for the same user can use the same apple ID.

No, I did not miss the point. I understand that, for reasons that make sense to you, you don't follow Apple's advice. That's your choice. However, you can't expect Apple, once they've said Apple Accounts are designed for one person, to make sure that all features work for shared accounts. Not going to happen. But, you should, nonetheless, let Apple know your thoughts.

Making an error is human.

Persisting once an error is known is also your choice.

You can learn from your mistake (and migrating to per-person accounts, enabling Family Sharing for sharing apps and subscriptions, photos and calendar, and such, etc) and can adapt to the Apple-recommended Apple Account configuration, or you can rail against the correct and cogent advice already offered here, and can persist with an already- and always-problematic configuration.

What you decide to do here with what has been learned is entirely your choice.

Want to learn about Family Sharing, about shared calendars, shared photos, and related?

Or want to learn that your current shared-account configuration already doesn’t work in more ways than you realize it doesn’t work?

Happy to explain about the sharing and other details too, but that’s call. Whatever your choice, I wish you well.

<< I am trying to understand why my hearing aids talking to my iPad needs an Apple ID. >>

The reason is that Apple devices now support HandOff -- transferring an ongoing audio stream to another Apple device. And the Apple devices to which you can hand off are exactly those logged in with the same Apple-ID.

So for example, start/answer a call on your iPhone, continue it on your iPad.

Billyd11 wrote:

I was really hoping someone in Apple would think through the design they have. It seems that isn’t you.

Lawrence doesn't work for Apple. No one here in this user-to-user forum does. We are all free to express our opinions, just like you.

Nor does Apple read here in these forums for suggestions. In my very first response, I gave you the link to provide such feedback to Apple. If you haven't already done so, I encourage you to let them know your thoughts.

Billyd11 wrote:

two different hearing aids can’t share an Apple ID. Sharing the Apple ID works for us of things like photos. This seems to be an Apple issue not a hearing aid company issue.

I don't understand how you came to that conclusion.

I never enter my Apple-ID with anything regarding my MFi-connected Hearing Aids.

¿What exactly are you seeing that suggests this is an Apple-ID issue?